Cleaning Product Recipes

One of the most costly products in our nonfood grocery items list is the cleaning product. Whether it's laundry detergent or kitchen cleaner, it is really easy to shell out some serious dough on anti-bacterial, "fresh"-smelling  products designed to make cleaning a "breeze" for the harried homemaker. Now, there are deals to be had when it comes to off the shelf cleaning products. If you catch a BOGO sale at your local grocery store and combine it with 2 manufacturer's coupons, you can really do pretty well. Stack store coupons, if you grocery store uses them, and you can get many surface cleaners for almost free. While it is hard to get "free" laundry and dish detergent (at least here in Florida), watching the sales and adding manufacturer's coupons can produce some really decent bargains.

While bargains are to found in the cleaning product category, another excellent alternative is handcrafing simpler, less caustic cleaners from natural ingredients. Not only is is safer for your family, but it also will cost you much less (unless you catch free or near free off the shelf products). I have several recipes I've used down through the years, primarily using baking soda, vinegar, borax & washing soda. There are tons of recipes on the internet...(check pinterest). I will be sharing some of my favorites over the next few posts, but I will start out with this extremely simple one for dishwasher detergent.

Combine 2 cups of baking soda and 1 1/2 cups of borax...mix well and store in a an airtight container...use 1 to 2 Tablespoons in your dishwasher dispenser. Also, you can use white vinegar as a rinse aid in your rinse aid dispenser.

Before closing this blog post on low cost dish cleaning, I must add that it is really much cheaper to wash dishes by hand...but I don't. This is a choice I make based on what works for our family and keeps me sane! But if you are able to hand wash dishes and stay ahead of them (and don't HATE it), you can save money on water and electricity by doing so.

Blessings,
Donna